


Unexpected

by Severa



Series: Safe House [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Dealing with assholes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-07 00:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3154631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severa/pseuds/Severa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't mind unexpected guests anymore. But there are still some people who can take him off guard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected

Sam doesn't mind unexpected guests anymore.

Of course, between the late night/early morning hours of 1:00 and 5:00 they're expected to quietly break in like any respectable superhero friends should; Tony calls them Sam's “shop hours.” They always secure the perimeter behind themselves and the fridge stays stocked in return. It's a system that works.

The first truly unexpected guest he gets during his first year of babysitting the Avengers comes in the early morning hours, post-workout. Sweating from the run with a water bottle stuck in his mouth, Sam double-times it up the steps. The sun is just rising over the city horizon and the air is crisp; it's a beautiful morning. His door creaks in the slight breeze.

Sam stops dead in his tracks.

The door to his home is ajar.  
  
First, he looks for blood. Someone might have shown up injured and been unable to lock the door behind them, he thinks, but there's no sign of that. There's no evidence of the Hulk; everything is in tact. He knows he closed the door behind himself when he left the house – he locked it behind himself, as he always does.

So he leaves the water bottle on the welcome mat and gently pushes the door open, sweeping his eyes over the narrow view a partially open door allows.

Inside, everything looks to be in order. Not a half-assed robbery, then. No signs of damage. But he can't hear the shower and the house is as quiet as the grave. No one is moving within. Someone could be hiding.

Quietly, he slips his phone out of his pocket and dials the panic number that will ping an alarm to JARVIS. Just in case, he tells himself. He can take care of it on his own.

He steps inside and closes the door behind him, then finds cover against the separating wall between the living areas and the kitchen. There's only the silence of his house, interrupted by a ticking clock. Everything is still.

Sam steels himself and steps into his kitchen.

James Buchanan Barnes stares at him from the kitchen table.

The clock ticks through the silence, early morning light illuminating the Winter Soldier. His hair is loose around his face and he's in full combat gear, and Sam can see where every HYDRA patch had been torn off the fabric. A silver compass is in James' good hand and he's worrying with it, occasionally opening and closing it with a soft click. He studies something inside and then it's closed again, rolled between his fingers, flicked open and stared at again. The cycle continues. Sam stares.

Thing is, James is on their side now. He's deep in rehabilitation and goes to weekly therapist appointments. He's wherever Steve is; the two are hardly ever apart. They live in the Tower, and while James sometimes goes out to see the light of day, he never does it alone. He isn't permitted to be on his own in public. If he suffers a flashback or a relapse, Steve and Natasha are the only two who can snap him out of it. Steve and Natasha, who are nowhere to be seen.

Sam thinks James Barnes is a good man, beneath it all. But the Soldier – well, the Soldier was something else entirely.

“How are you, JB?” Sam tried, trying for a calm voice. Maybe someone had dropped him off here. “You left the door open.”

The Soldier gave a fraction of a nod.

“Indicating arrival.”

His eyes didn't move up. He opened the compass and closed it again. Sam waited for him to talk.

“...He never got his dance.”

Sam's brows furrowed, but he relaxed in the slightest.

“Who never got a dance?”

James' eyes moved to the side, staring out the window. He looked a little more normal in that light, a little bit smaller than the metal-armed assassin he was.

“Carter.” He said once, and then twice. “Carter. She's... gone.”

“Oh.” _Oh._

Sam finally moved from his position and took a few brave steps forward, half his thoughts for Steve and the other half for the man in front of him.

“Why did you come here?” He pulled out a chair and sat. It was James' turn to tense, but that left him like a passing breeze. He was trying to find his words, and Sam knew that could sometimes take a long time.

“He was upset. This place...” He looked at the compass again, opened, closed, and rolled it.

“Safe house.” Sam provided. James gave a nod and searched for his words again.

“No contact.” He reported. “Lack of eye contact, tense shoulders, short words--”

“It's grief, James.” The counselor provided.

The Soldier's jaw tensed. He closed the compass again and held it in his flesh hand, squeezing tight. The metal arm would have crushed it.

“You're worried about him.” Sam continued. “But what about you?”

That was where it started. It was a simple question from someone that wasn't Steve. Someone asking James about himself, who wasn't paid to make sure he was ok. Someone with the patience to deal with a damaged Soldier. Someone who didn't analyze him or try and take off his arm, didn't try to tinker and fix. Just an ear. Someone who had experienced the Winter Soldier at his worst, but wanted him to be at his best.

After that, no one needed to escort James Barnes when he wanted to go see Sam.

In fact, he broke in and secured the perimeter better than any of them.


End file.
